MIT Explores Ways To Customize Purpose-Driven Nanowires

MIT researchers have found a way of precisely controlling the width and composition of nanowires, making it possible to customize nanowires for particular applications. Nanowires can have very different properties based on the quantum behaviors of electrons and phonons within the material, and this in turn affects how nanowires conduct electricity and heat or interacts with light, according to MIT assistant professor of materials science and engineering Silvija Gradečak.

The MIT team controlled the size and composition of nanowires as they grew by adjusting the amount of gases used in growing the nanowires. The researchers carried out their nanowire-growth experiments with indium nitride and indium gallium nitride, but the same technique could be applied to a variety of different materials, according to the team.